Comments

Your feedback is important to us!

We invite all our readers to share with us their views and comments about this article.

Disclaimer: Comments submitted by third parties on this site are the sole responsibility of the individual(s) whose content is submitted. The Daily Star accepts no responsibility for the content of comment(s), including, without limitation, any error, omission or inaccuracy therein. Please note that your email address will NOT appear on the site.

Alert: If you are facing problems with posting comments, please note that you must verify your email with Disqus prior to posting a comment. follow this link to make sure your account meets the requirements. (http://bit.ly/vDisqus)

The attacks in Brussels, on the heels of those in Paris and San Bernardino, have stoked an already white-hot debate about Islamic terrorism in America. Many in the West, including the two Republican front-runners, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, urge a campaign that targets Muslim communities more directly, searching for those who might be prone to religious extremism and thus terrorism.

But the recent bombings in Europe are being perpetrated by a new generation of terrorists who are upending our previous understanding of what motivates them and how to find and stop them. To put it simply, today's terrorists are not religious extremists who became radicals but rather radicals who became religious extremists.

Then, it took years of religious indoctrination to turn people into Muslim extremist.

Writing about these young French extremists, the great French scholar of Islam, Olivier Roy, points out that almost none have a background in political activism (say, Palestine), fundamentalist Islam or social conservatism.